One niggling thought which would not go away as I slouched in my seat at the Silverbird Cinemas watching the second screening of Frank Rajah Arase and Abdul Salaam Mumuni’s new work, Poolparty, was that “the plots in these movies are awfully familiar…I hope they have not being shamelessly remade with very little creativity for us”. Forgive me folks, but have we not seen one-too-many movies in this country over the past few years which have been so blatantly copied that the only difference between those and the originals are the cast and perhaps title! True. The Game, is an example. Sometimes it seems creativity in our industry is dead in the water. Truth be told.

Plot:

Poolparty (I am still not sure whether it ought to be one word or two words) is a drama. It is a story of love, betrayal, and insensitivity in humanity with a good dose of sex, semi-nude women and some half-baked acting thrown in the mix. The movie, from what I saw, is a parallel story of a double-cast Majid Michel as George Mensah (a regular man married to a successful lawyer and leading a relatively happy life; at least so it seemed) and Oscar (a poor rasta-haired man who is drawn into the life of crime after losing his son through illness). George Mensah’s wife betrays him by sleeping with his younger brother, played by ace musician, Samini. Oscar, the other character played by Majid loses his son when a doctor, played by Ekow Blankson, refuses to commence surgery because the father could not raise the needed funds. What happen afterwards are the consequences of these two events.

Copy-Copy:

Frankly speaking, the plot seems too familiar to being Hindi. The storyline is the type of happenings we see and hear of in Hindi societies. It is hardly Ghanaian. Honest. Again, I beg for your forgiveness, but the Raj/Abdul Salaam combination are not very creative, especially with their screenplay. As I have said, they shamelessly copied, not adapted, the storyline of the The Game, and I have an awesomely huge feeling the same can be told of this. A colleague tells me indeed the story was copied from a Hindi movie. I am yet to confirm this, but I do not doubt it. Perhaps I should write broadly on creativity in our television and movie industry later!

Thespians:

I am going to try writing about the performances of the thespians (I heard this word not long ago so pardon me I use it a lot) as I saw them, trying hard to lift myself from the potential disappointment of writing on a copied creativity). I must say that most of the cast did just ok. If you ask me, I don’t think there was any award winning performance from anyone of them.

Samini certainly got his ‘swag on’. I stand to be corrected, but I think this is the ace musician’s first, full length movie and he was not bad, I think. Certainly playing along experienced players like the two Yvonnes, Eddie Nartey, Ekow Blankson and Majid did help in getting him settled into his role as George Mensah’s kid brother. I bet he enjoyed having a go at Yvonne Nelson too! The two certainly kissed as though they had been meaning to do so for a while, methink. I remember the cheers from the audience whenever he came on. He seemed to have perfected his walk too, just to add a little more’swag’. Good performance from a dude whose main talent is singing. And did Yvonne show things!!! Majid Michel was very good as George Mensah but not so good as Scott for several scenes. He seemed to forget at some point that as Scott, he should be speaking with a Yankee or was it Jamaican accent. Overall, I think he was ok. I have seen him better but he did not disappoint, especially as George Mensah.

Yvonne Nelson was just ok. Frankly I think she’s being sliding down the best actress ladder for a while now. She was not too convincing in the movie, as the wife of George Mensah. I have had problems with her make-up and I think it was again over-done here. I don’t know who to blame, i.e. the make-up artist, or the actress herself. I am tempted to blame the latter, especially when she has been seen so many times in public so overly made-up sometimes to look like something else. In Pool Party, she was not extraordinary. Yvonne Okoro played the wife of the Doctor (well played by Ekow Blankson). I think she was alright. In my opinion, she was the better actress in the movie. The other three accomplices of Scott, Martha Ankomah and the two other women, were nothing but average.

Surreal Scenes:

There is a scene where Ekow Blankson, after being blamed by his wife for the kidnapping of their daughter, rushes to his door where a bunch of strange looking journalists have gathered; he then sings about his regret and sorrows and all that (a clear indication that the movie is definitely a copy-cat from our Hindi brothers). He then goes back into his house. My point, how surreal can we get, that in the heat of a family trauma, the man of the house goes out to grant a media interview, albeit through a song!! Worse, we did not see that coming. Pardon me folks, but up until that point, the viewer is made to believe that this is one serious movie, not a dance piece like the Hindis are noted for.

Secondly, there is that lousy attempt at creating a scene with paparazzi. First of all, they look totally out of sorts and at no point do they look like journalists. I mean, come on, you either do it well, or you don’t do it at all. These were a bunch of young men and women who were chasing a man almost to the point of entering his living room. Meanwhile, the family lives in a gated house and had seemingly try to avoid the media,; yet their main gate is left unlocked. I think these are some of the little things that distinguish a good movie from a mediocre one.

Perhaps the most illogical part of Pool Party was what was called a police trial? My layman’s mind tells me that if there will be a police trial, then the person on trial ought to be a servicing officer, or perhaps a retired one? But here we were with a police trial involving a civilian? How? I hope someone who knows better educates me, but from what I saw, it made no sense. May be it does in other jurisdictions, perhaps India?

Final Thoughts:

I think some producers and directors have taken the Ghanaian movie goer or buyer for granted for far too long. They say to themselves ‘let’s put together any rubbish, our people will watch it. What the heck, they may not even realize is rubbish’. I am afraid Frank Rajah Arase and Abdul Salaam Mumuni may just fall into this group. Hey I appreciate what Venus Films has done over the years, but in all honesty, they could do much better, especially with all the experience they have gathered. Sadly, I think we do not see that. Acting was generally ok. As I said, I did not find any award winning performance there. Martha Ankomah was as usual jumping up and down and bouncing her behind as though she was in a Contest of the Behinds (sounds like a movie title; at least that could be original); Majid was ok, but I guess seeing him play similar roles again and again does not make it anything special. Yvonne Okoro (my sweetheart) was also just ok, slightly close to her natural performance in 4Play. Ekow Blankson is a natural actor and he was natural here too…except for the ‘song’ he was compelled to ‘sing’. Sorry Frank, but you have given me course to believe that I should doubt the originality of your work until proven otherwise (as if the dude will even care to read this). By the way, I am sure POOLPARTY RELOADED is in the offing. That is the new thing now. instead of Part 3 and 4 they call it RELOADED! Often reloaded with nothing!

Rating? Difficult for me to rate. Should you go see it? May be; so you confirm my views or have a good reason to rebut it. Again, if you have nothing important to do, go see it.

By Kwame Gyan

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